The Apprentice has already come up with a brilliant definition of irony, where team leader Dan exploded with the phrase “have some f***ing patience!”. Also amusing was Stuart’s online audition video, in which he noted that his drive comes from being alive, because “there’re so many people that aren’t alive, or who have died, unfortunately”. It’s safe to say the nation’s business acumen will be vastly improved by following the example of this year’s crop of contestants.

Having said that, one or two participants have been genuinely impressive. In the second week, one of the women, Stella, was asked to lead the men’s team. Her leadership was far superior to that of the majority of previous Apprentice contestants, and she led the team to success. This was particularly notable considering the discrimination and prejudice that women still face in the workplace, especially in business environments. She showed not only that women are as good as men in business, but that they can lead a team of men with strength and clarity.

Unfortunately, while the men did function well under her leadership, and generally respected her, one incident involving some of the team members represented just how hard women still have to fight to achieve the same respect and privileges as men. The team had designed an item to be used on the beach. For very little apparent reason, the three-man subgroup decided that it would be better to have a female model on the packet than to have a male model. Thus, they decided that Stella should be the model. They asked her over the phone, and she quite rightly stated that her role was to lead the team, as opposed to being a model, and was reasonably clear that it was not something she particularly wanted to do. Yes, she said she would do it if she really had to, but it was clear this was more of an attempted concession to team work and possibly peer pressure than a genuine choice. The group of three team members responded to her comments that she did not want to model by going shopping for a bikini for her to wear.

Again the issue was addressed, and again Stella was reticent. But the men would not relinquish their pressure, one of them stating that she should “take one for the team”, and eventually she accepted. The only positive was that they had bought an outfit which covered a comparatively large portion of her torso, but frankly this did nothing to compensate for the pressure and misogyny driving the scenario.

And so a talented woman, whose leadership skills were commended by Alan Sugar himself, was pressured into taking her clothes off to sell the product of the team that she was managing.

This sort of thing happens all the time throughout advertising and the wider media, but it is perhaps even more shocking in this instance because it was both readily acknowledged by her team mates, and implicitly condoned by Alan Sugar and his aides, that her gender was the sole reason she was being asked to remove her clothes. The Apprentice begins its series with equal numbers of men and women, and it has crowned a number of women among its winners, yet as this example shows, even females with the most powerful and intelligent minds are still expected to use their bodies in the pursuit of success. 

- Lizzy